Fine gardening

News Date: 30.10.2012

Fine gardening is to gardening as fine cuisine is to cooking. The old cottage type English garden with its colourful beds of flowers, green lawns and fruit trees can hardly be called fine gardening. To me the phrase means more than just a garden. It encompasses all that’s good and refined in gardening and combines them to make one garden that is the embodiment of all your dreams. It may mean many things to many people, but to me it means more than just a garden, it means a work of art. It brings to mind an image of a small water feature with the background tinkling of a waterfall trickling down a small rocky slope, a couple of water lilies, a sparkle of gold from a few small goldfish and some ferns and leafy plants in the background.

Fine gardening brings to mind the reds and golds and yellows and browns and all the other vibrant colours that come with Autumn. The scent of the fallen leaves and the unforgettable aroma of newly cut grass, or that wonderful bouquet that comes after the first rains. Fine gardening is a form of art – it’s the careful placing of a wooden bench under the spreading boughs of a chestnut tree. It’s the amazing combination of a person’s thoughts and Mother Nature. It’s the result of careful planning and meticulous thought put together on an earthy canvas to produce something that is both pleasing to the eye and tranquil to the mind.